Frequently Asked Questions

SAM Question & Answer:

1. Can I use my CCR Username and Password to log into SAM?

Yes and No

You must create an account in SAM. If you choose to use the same username and password that you did in CCR, you may do so.

2. Is there a cost to register in or to use SAM?

The System for Award Management (SAM) is an Official entity of the U.S. Government. It is FREE to create an account for SAM. Business owners may register directly on this site at no cost. User Help Guides and Webinars are available on this site, under the help guide.

3. Do I have to create an account with SAM?

It Depends, you DO NOT need to register an account with SAM if you only want to search the publicly available information. If it was free to access in CCR, ELPS, or ORCA, it is accessible for free in SAM.

You DO need an account in SAM if:

You want to see information beyond what is publicly available for free. If you are logging in with an account that is associated with a government email address, then you will already have access to FOUO level data.

You wish to save your search queries and return to them later.

You want to add information in SAM or update your entity records.

4. When Should I create my SAM account?

If you currently have a record in CCR, you have an active record with SAM. It is not required that you currently register with SAM unless there is a change in your business’s circumstances that requires you to make a change to your account information in SAM in order to be paid or receive an award. SAM will send an email notification to the registered user 60, 30, and 15 days before your account’s expiration date. You can search for entities that are registered in SAM by entering the business name or DUNS number in the search bar.

If you choose to not use the data that is publicly available, your record will not be displayed when you perform a public search. To view your record, you have to create an account in SAM and migrate your account from CCR.

If you are a staff member of a government agency and you need to access data that is not publicly available, you should create an account in SAM.

If you are an entity that has a record that is currently expired and you need to activate your record to receive an award, you should create an account and migrate your information from CCR.

Once you have completed the update process to your SAM account, it will take from 48-72 hours to complete the CAGE validation and TIN match processes, similar to CCR. The account owner will receive an email notification when the update process has completed and your record becomes active in SAM. SAM does not have the ability to reduce this wait time or expedite the process.

If you are the owner of an account with an expired record and you need to update the information on your account, then you should create your account now and migrate your roles from CCR.

Receive the notification email and click through the SAM.gov link to validate your account

Log in to your account by going to https://sam.gov with your username and password

6. Do I need to migrate any information?

If you had an account in CCR and were able to edit information on the account, you will have to migrate your CCR account information prior to being able to edit that record in SAM (see question 4 for guidance on when to migrate). If that CCR account has an ORCA record associated with it, you will have access to the ORCA record once the CCR account migration is complete.

If you had an account that you could edit in FedReg, you need to migrate your FedReg account before you will be able to edit that record in SAM.

If you had exclusion roles in EPLS, you must migrate your EPLS account as well.

If you had CCR Tools, or proprietary access, you DO NOT need to migrate that role. your account was already created for you, and your role has already been migrated for you. An email should have been sent to the account owner from askSAM@gsa.gov regarding the process to gain access to your account.

If you had additional roles in SAM (e.g., CCR Tools, Sensitive Access, the ability to edit an entity record, or the ability to add exclusions), then you can migrate the corresponding roles after you have created an account in SAM.

If you need any help with the migration process, please view the Quick Start Guide for Migration, which you can find under the SAM help tab.

7. How do I find the small business status of an entity?

The size of an entity is determined by metrics that are provided by the North American Industrial Classification codes and the Small Business Administration’s size standards table for the corresponding industry. An entity is not considered small or other than small as a whole but rather in terms of each of the NAICS’s in keeping with SBA regulations. Contracting officers are required to check the representation and certifications created by the entity and then they will determine the size of that entity for a given award.

Go to https://sam.gov

Search for the entity

Click on View Details for the entity you want to view

Click on Representations and Certifications in the menu bar located to the left

Scroll down to 52.212-3 or 52.219-1 and click on the provision. In some browsers, this does not appear as a hyper-link. Mouse over the provision and click on it regardless. This will expand the record. Scroll down to view the table for NAICS.